VRV Gallery Interview / Paintings From Another World..

What are the “postkaraoke” and “bomatik” concepts?

I first created the “postkaraoke” concept. Its explanation is simple and you can find the meaning in its name. But everybody around me began to ask me about that “postkaraoke” concept and I decided not to explain it. I wanted people to discover it. With “bomatik”, same thing… Of course they have an explanation and they are the concepts about the new way of life that we live in. This is all I can tell. No more! It is like a game.

As an artist, how do you contrast painting and sculpture?

Firstly, I want to say that I don’t feel myself like an artist. I am a man who goes to his studio every day and kills his time playing with the things that he likes. That’s all. I don’t know and I can’t imagine how somebody can realize that he/she is an artist. I don’t think sculpture and the painting are different. They are the same thing. Maybe the way that you create artworks changes –not always- but finally they are the same. And I also think for video, installation, cinema…

What would make your life as an artist easier?

Really, I don’t know. I don’t want an easier life or a more difficult one. I want to pass my time then finish it like everybody. Life is difficult now, in the actual world, for everybody. I want to see, to hear, to taste, to understand, to feel and to create as much as I can.

What did you think when one of your pieces got bought for the first time?

I thought that this person was a crazy. I was living in Turkey and one week before I moved to Spain, somebody wanted to buy my painting “All About the Advertisement”… Now, when I think of it from the financial perspective, the same painting would cost at least 15 times more. Then, he was not that crazy. It is funny. And I want to tell this. It is important for me. I always think and say that: “I don’t sell my paintings, they buy”. Because I can’t create relaxed if I begin thinking about selling something. It is my personality. It is so simple and real. If I really wanted to sell something in this life, I could take another job and earn more money in an easier way than selling paintings. A painting is one of the most difficult thing to sell in this world.

Does the idea of collaborating with other painters on one piece appeal to you?

Not really, but of course I can. I have already collaborated with my friends but that was made in the moment. We didn’t think that we might paint together. At times, it was funny because, me or other painter, would begin erasing or painting over what the other did.

Is it important for you to get feedback from art amateurs and professionals?

Of course not, because I am all the day in my studio and I don’t care what the other people do. Because if I begin caring about this, I begin losing my time.

Are you disappointed by photographs of your work versus the real thing?

Sometimes I think the same thing. When I look at a photograph of my work, I see a photograph of my work. A good photograph or a bad one. When I see my work directly, I see my work. So they are different things. But of course I prefer to see my paintings directly, not from a photography image. A painting is not an image that you can transfer to an another surface. It’s like poems… When you translate them into other language, they are completely different.

You went to a few art schools (Fine Arts Faculty of Mimar Sinan University and at the Facultad de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Universidad Politecnica in Valencia). What did you learn there? What do you think is the most important feature of an art curriculum?

In reality, I went to these art schools for the studios that they offered me for free. I think that they don’t have anything special to offer to someone for his/her artistic life. You may have a good professor… rarely, but it is fine. It is not so simple to find them. If somebody wants really to create, he/she creates. With the school or without the school. Before, the art schools didn’t exist and people created amazing things. The art curriculum is not important. The professional life wants and insists on it but the most important thing is, if the person who creates is happy with his/her creation or not. That’s all.

Have you tried other forms of art like photography?

Before painting, I was playing music, and I still do. And, of course, I have made photographies, videos, installations etc. But for me, the most important thing in my creation is the relation between my time and my body. If I begin to be bored when I create, -in the process- I cannot create or I create boring things for me. The way that I create cannot be boring for me. And the painting is a direct and primitive form to express the things that I feel or think… Sometimes, I have many ideas for a film or a video, but when I begin to think on how to realize them with the people around me, the computers…I don’t want to do it anymore. Maybe one day, when I will have more patience, I will try to make something like this. I write poems too. It is similar with the painting, really. And I enjoy it.

Who is your favorite artist on vrvgallery.com?

It is difficult to choose somebody in VRVGallery, because there are so many people I think make good work. But if I have to choose somebody, I like the “Collages” of Matthew Rose.

Your exhibition on vrvgallery.com is named “delik”; what does this name mean? Why did you chose it?

“Delik” means in Turkish “the hole”. The “delik” exhibition was realized in the real life, in 2007, in Espacio Forja, Valencia, Spain. The idea of the exhibition was to paint 19 4mX5m paintings and complete all over the walls of a huge exhibition space. And the place was finally like a “hole” that the people could dig in and lose or find themselves. Or none of those options.

Could you talk about the creative process that you used to produce those paintings?

It is difficult to explain this. I’m so inside my work and I can’t explain it. If I could explain, maybe I could be writer.

When you were working on that series, were you working only on it or you were also working on quite different artworks?

Normally, I work at the same time on many different works, but, in this case, I was living in Paris and I had two studios, one in Paris and one in Valencia. I decided to paint all of them in Valencia and I did not have so much time for to create them because I had to be in Paris for an other exhibition and for this reason, I had to lock myself in my Valencia studio and I concentrated and painted only for that project.

I have always thought that a good abstract painting could be rotated and still be good. A portrait, on the other hand, cannot be rotated. What do you think of that test?

I still don’t know what is a good abstract painting. Maybe a bad abstract painting for someone can be rotated and can be better. I think a portrait can be rotated too. Baselitz did it with interesting results. It is all about our esthetic habit. When I paint, I don’t think about the direction of the painting and I don’t want to specify how the people have to look at the painting. Maybe we have to close our eyes for to look at a painting. Finally, I don’t believe the directions. Maybe we are all born rotated.

Which music would you like to be played as a background of this “Delik” exhibition?

Coltrane? Radiohead? Boris Vian? Monk? Sonic Youth? It is so difficult to decide …

At first, I got rebuked by the similarity of the paintings, but I started paying attention to the details and I found myself traveling and exploring a world in itself. Each time I go back to those paintings, I need a few seconds for me eyes to adjust and find peace with with the artwork. Is my reaction typical?

I don’t really know if it is typical. I try to not to think so much what the people think of my paintings. Of course, it is so interesting and funny that everybody says different things about my paintings. I listen but I don’t think so much about them. It is impossible that you think the same thing as me when you see my paintings. It is similar when we look at the same stone… Are we sure that we see the same stone? But it is good that you travel in my paintings!

The first three paintings are named “buzul cagi”, “buzul cagi II”, and “buzul cagi III”. My Turkish is rusty (I am assuming this is the language here, pardon my ignorance); what do those titles mean? Why three pieces? Is there at buzul cagi IV? Would you mind to have a different buyer for each?

They mean “Ice Age”. There are four “Buzul Cagi”. They are different paintings. I don’t mind if there are different buyers. Neither do I mind if there are buyers.

How did you know that each of those paintings was finished? For instance “yavas”; why is it finished?

Good question. I think it is impossible to know if a painting is finished in the meaning that you talk about . Maybe they will be finished when I die, maybe not. We always want to explain a painting. Why? I think always you can continue to put more in a painting. It does not exist a “perfect” concept for the painting. It does not exist a concept for the painting.